‘Undateable’ Ratings Soft In Live Season Debut, ‘Dr. Ken’ Strong In Week 2

If you like your television live there were more choices than usual on Friday night. For one, there was Game 1 of the National League Division Series on TBS with the New York Mets beating the Dodgers 3-1 in Los Angeles – with Game 2 tonight, I might add. Then there was the Season 3 debut of Undateable (0.8/3) on NBC, which was also live but didn’t have the same fire as the baseball – at least not in the ratings.

The first of an all-live Season 3 saw the NBC comedy take an expected fall from its March 17 Season 2 debut behind The Voice. However, that 59% drop among adults 18-49 also saw Undateable down 38% from its first 1-hour live show of May 5 and its Season 2 finale of May 12. Third in its time slot and the lowest-rated original on the Big 4 last night, Undateable, which moves to half-hours next week, was up 14% over its Season 1 finale of July 3, 2014 aka the last time it didn’t have a Voice lead-in.

The rest of NBC’s night suffered too with Dateline (0.9/3) stumbling down 18% from last week. The 9 – 11 PM news mag had a highly promoted special group interview this week with nearly 30 women who claim Bill Cosby sexually assaulted them. The Dateline interview came the same day the comedian was set to be deposed over allegations from Judy Huth that he molested the then 15-year old back in 1974. A federal judge also ruled yesterday that a defamation case brought by Tamara Green, Therese Serignese and Linda Traitz against Cosby and his team, who said that the trio made up claims of sexual abuse by the star, could go forward.

Over on ABC it was a much better Friday ratingswise. For one thing, the net’s new show Dr. Ken (1.3/4) declined just 13% from the final numbers of its debut last week and 7% from the fast nationals. That’s the best Week 2 retention of any new comedy this season so far. And Dr. Ken held 100% of its Last Man Standing (1.3/6) lead-in. The Tim Allen comedy saw a bop up of 8% from its October 1 show. Unfortunately, while still the highest rated show of the night, Shark Tank (1.5/5) did not deliver such a rise for ABC. The entrepreneurial reality series was down 12% from last week. Having said that, ST commonly rises in later numbers and likely will this week. Finishing the night for ABC was 20/20 (1.0/4), which slipped 9% from last week. Overall ABC won Friday yet again with a 1.3/5 rating.

As ABC topped the demo for the third Friday in a row this still new season, CBS took the No. 1 spot with viewers again with 8.42 million tuning in. That, of course, is in no small part due to the 10.47 million who watched Blue Bloods (1.2/4) last night – though the NYPD family drama did dip 8% in total audience from its October 1 show. The Amazing Race (1.1/5) and Blue Bloods both slipped 8% in the 18-49 from last week while Hawaii Five-O (1.1/4) stayed even.

The CW saw the third season ofReign (0.3/1) debut down a tenth from its Season 2 October 2, 2014 opener of the historical royal romancer. Lead-out America’s Next Top Model (0.3/1) held on to 100% of that Reign action but fell 25% from last week.

Fox was all encores of Gotham (0.5/2) and Rosewood (0.4/1) last night.